All I Want is Something Better, Something Safe
by Vita Fidens
Summary: Sequel to "This is Where I Draw the Line, the Infection Must Die." Liz Moore has walked away from a world that she thinks has taken everything from her - but that world isn't ready to let her go yet. Forced to face a harsh reality, will she return to the WWE and Dean Ambrose?
1. Chapter 1

'How long are you going to stay mad at us?'

I stared at Seth's text with mixed emotions. It had been a week since I had walked out of the arena and out of my job. In that time, I hadn't spoken to any of my friends or former colleagues. It was childish and selfish; I could admit that.

It wasn't that I was angry at Seth and Ro. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth – I felt like I needed to talk to or see both of them desperately. But I didn't want to get sucked back into the madness that my life had become when I was around the business.

Still…it wasn't right of me to treat them like this.

'Sorry friend,' I replied. 'I'm not mad. I just need some time.'

'We're really worried.'

'Don't be. I'm ok. I just don't want to be a jerk to you guys when you don't deserve it.'

'You're always a jerk to us. We still love you.' He followed this up with a little emoticon with the tongue sticking out. I had to laugh.

'You smell.'

'See, there you go, being a jerk.'

'You love it.'

'I do. Because I love you.'

I could feel my eyes starting to fill with tears. 'Way to get serious on me. Jerk.'

'We all love you. Come home.'

'Who are you and what have you done with Seth?'

'Caught me. It's Sheamus. Fella. BROGUE BROGUE BROGUE.'

I laughed heartily at this. 'Go fuck yourself Rollins.' I followed it up with a similar tongue-out emoticon so he knew I wasn't actually mad.

Another text rolled in, this time from Roman.

'Want me to punch him?'

'YES!'

Seth texted me. 'Ow!'

I was rolling by now, laughing uncontrollably.

'I miss you fools,' I texted both of them.

After a few minutes with no response, my Skype popped up and I saw that Seth was requesting a video chat. I shook my head, but accepted anyway.

Seth's face studied me critically before his voice came out of my phone's speaker. "You look like you've showered and even did your hair today. I'm impressed."

"What were you expecting?" I asked, laughing.

"A mess," Ro's deep voice growled off camera.

"The amount of faith you guys have in me is astounding."

"Well, be fair, we're not around to take care of you," Seth said, shrugging. Ro's head popped into the frame, nodding.

I laughed. "Yes, this is true. How did I ever manage for twenty-seven years without you?"

"It's pretty much a miracle," Ro said.

Someone's nostrils popped into the picture.

"Whose nose am I staring into?"

Punk tilted his head down so I could see his face. "Hi Lizzy," he said, waving.

"Hey Punk. Where are you guys?"

"You are in the men's locker room," Punk told me, grinning.

"Really Seth? Really?"

"Really!" I heard a familiar voice yell from a distance.

"Shut up, Miz," Punk muttered, going out of the frame. "Nobody was talking to you."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Still the same old place, I see."

"Well, except for the hookers. But we made sure they left before we Skyped you."

"Aw man, you guys are no fun!"

We chatted for a bit, the phone being passed from Seth to Roman to Punk to pretty much everyone in the locker room, save a few obvious people I would want no part of speaking with. As the phone was finally being handed back to Seth, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Dean in the background.

My heart started pounding roughly in my chest and continued while Seth, Ro and I said our goodbyes.

I'd been doing my best to avoid thinking about Dean and what had happened between us last time we had spent any significant amount of time together. I was mostly managing to do that, and he was being helpful in that regard by leaving me alone.

I knew I was going to have to face it soon. With Seth and Roman reaching out to me, my life was slowly creeping back towards reality. And where there was a harsh dose of reality to be found, Dean Ambrose wouldn't be far behind.


	2. Chapter 2

It took him three days.

I tried to go about my life in that time. I was working on cleaning my apartment out in preparation for a possible move. Stamford didn't hold any appeal for me any longer, and when my lease was up I was pretty sure I was going to settle elsewhere. As for where, Tampa was awfully nice and had a lot of my friends in it.

I was sweaty and coated in a layer of grime that had been dust in my closets when my phone rang. Distracted, I picked it up without checking the ID, huffing from having hauled a box full of what I imagined to be anvils down from my top shelf.

"Am I interrupting something?" Dean's gravelly voice broke into my thoughts.

"You're interrupting me cleaning my closet," I replied dryly.

"Too bad. I was hoping I caught you in a different kind of mood."

I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore the tingling that had started between my thighs. Goddamnit, how did he manage to do this to me all the time?

"What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you, Elizabeth. I think we've both had enough time to cool down, and we can probably be rational human beings."

"That's a pretty lofty goal for the two of us," I replied, sitting on my bed. I had a feeling that I didn't want to be standing for this conversation.

"Maybe," he admitted. "But let's try it, shall we?"

I took a deep breath. I knew that we needed to do this at some point; at least I couldn't choke him through the phone. "All right. What do you want to discuss?"

"I think you owe me an apology."

Right here is where I would have started choking him. The phone had, indeed, been a stroke of brilliance.

"I don't owe you a thing."

"Did you forget that you beat the shit out of me for something that Paul did?"

"Did you forget that you did it first? I never got an apology from you."

He was quiet for a few minutes. "I'm sorry," he finally said, his voice full of petulance.

"Why don't I believe you? Oh wait – probably because you're acting like a three-year-old who is completing his forced apology before he can have dessert. Let's be honest here, Dean – neither of us is sorry."

"Did you enjoy it?" He asked.

That caught me off-guard, and I needed a few minutes to consider my answer.

"No," I finally said. "Did I enjoy giving you what you deserved and getting some kind of revenge? Yes. Did I actually enjoy beating you with a belt? No." I paused. "If I'm honest, it made me feel a little sick to my stomach."

"Did you enjoy it when I did it to you?" He asked.

"Are you fucking insane?"

"Just think about the question, Lizzy. I know your instincts tell you to say no. But I want the truth from you. Did you like being tied up? Helpless and at my mercy? Maybe just a _little_ bit?"

I waited a few moments to give him the illusion of consideration. "No," I replied firmly.

It was his turn to be quiet. I expected him to come back and accuse me of lying, but he didn't. "All right," he said evenly. "So no apologies and you enjoyed none of it."

"That's the shape of everything, yeah. Anything else?"

"Just one more thing."

I waited for him to continue, but he fell silent. I raised an eyebrow. "What is it, Ambrose?"

He sighed heavily. "I still want you. Even after that beating you gave me. I was pissed off, make no mistake – but after I calmed down, all I could think about was seeing you again...touching you again."

There was a long pause on both of our ends. "Is that all?" I asked.

"Come back, Lizzy. Not seeing you every day hurts."

I shook my head. "That ship sailed. I reached my breaking point with that place. I reached my breaking point with you and Paul."

"No you haven't. Otherwise you wouldn't be talking to me now. Like it or not, this is your home and we are your family. You belong here." He hesitated. "Come home."

"I _am_ home," I snapped, hanging up on him abruptly.


	3. Chapter 3

I went to bed late and dreamed vividly.

It started out pretty normal for a dream. I was back working for Paul, in an arena on show night. I was running all manner of crazy errands for him – he needed six fried chickens as quickly as possible. I didn't know why; I just knew that it was incredibly important.

I performed every task he put in front of me and got high praise for it. I felt useful.

The dream slowly started to change; the arena and the people melted away until there was just one other person there – Dean.

He came up to me and casually pushed me back. I landed on a bed that had appeared out of nowhere, completely naked. This didn't seem at all strange to him, even though he was still fully clothed.

He reached for my hand and cuffed the wrist to the headboard. Knowing that was what he was doing, I still gave him my other hand willingly.

He bent and kissed me, smiling, before he slid down my body. Pausing only to lightly kiss my nipples, I was unsurprised when he reached his final destination. I pushed my hips towards his mouth immediately, feeling a wave of lust and bliss flow over me.

I tried to reach for him, wanting to feel my fingers run through his hair – but the cuffs jangled at me annoyingly, reminding me of my current situation. I huffed in agitation and frustration, simply wanting to touch him.

He stopped and looked up, obviously amused. "What is it, sweetheart?"

"I want to touch you."

The right side of his mouth curled up briefly in an all-too-familiar half-smirk. He moved up to his knees, and I noticed that his clothing had somehow fallen off of him completely. "How badly do you want to touch me?" He asked, reaching down and starting to rub me. I closed my eyes against the influx of pleasure, sighing happily.

He chuckled, slipping his fingers away from me. "_That_ badly, huh?"

He covered his body with mine and kissed me intensely, his hands lightly groping my breasts. His mouth moved and he began kissing my neck, his teeth lightly scraping against my skin. I pushed my hips towards him, aching desperately.

He pulled back, smiling. "Tell me now that you don't enjoy this, Lizzy. Tell me that this frustration isn't simply delicious; that longing and yearning feeling that fills your belly and makes it all the more…satisfying…when you finally get what you're after."

"I'm not sure yet," I replied. "I haven't gotten what I'm after."

He tried to keep from smiling and failed before plunging deep inside of me. We both moaned softly and simply enjoyed the moment before Dean started moving.

"Tell me this doesn't feel right," he murmured in my ear. "That's the trouble, isn't it? I'm getting too close, Lizzy. I'm in your head. And the real problem is that you don't mind me being in your head, do you baby?"

"Shut up," I said, turning my head to kiss him – but he pulled back.

"No," he said firmly, even though his face showed compassion. "You need to face this before things get even worse for us and nothing can be salvaged."

I sighed. "I just want to come. Please."

"You don't need to kiss me or touch me for that," he replied smartly.

"No, but I want to." The words tumbled out of my mouth before I realized it, and he raised an eyebrow at me as if to say 'duh.' I closed my eyes, shaking my head.

He began moving again, this time keeping his big mouth shut – or, more appropriately, this time my brain kept its big mouth shut.

I woke up gasping, my fingers rubbing my clit frantically. I was sweaty and sticky and panting, my heart racing wildly as my orgasm shot through me.

I collapsed back on the bed, breathless.

It took me a few minutes to recover completely. That's when the unpleasant thoughts I'd been avoiding for weeks now began to whisper in my head.

It all boiled down to one question, to one simple statement that floated in my head without a suitable answer.

What if he and I _could_ really be something?


	4. Chapter 4

I shuffled to the door, annoyed. Someone was knocking at 7:30 in the morning, and it was my intent to knock right back on their face.

I peered through the peephole and was immediately awake – Paul Heyman was standing at my door, a paper tray with two cups perched in it clasped in his hand.

Even as I watched, he knocked again, sighing heavily.

"Liz? Are you there?"

For some reason, I kept my mouth shut.

I was still incredibly angry with Paul. He had interfered where he shouldn't have and had changed the course of my life. But it was more than that as well – after we'd worked together for so long, I'd begun to trust him. I'd begun to look up to him. I'd begun to view him, as I had with nearly all of the boys, as family. That just made the betrayal even worse.

"I know you're still angry with me," he said, leaning his head against the door. "I just want to talk to you. Please."

I felt my head fall forward in defeat. This was another conversation that I knew I needed to have sooner rather than later.

I unlatched the door and opened it, much to both of our surprise.

I didn't say anything. I just grabbed the cup of coffee out of the tray and gestured him inside. I took several glugs of coffee before sitting down at my kitchen table and staring at him, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm so sorry," he said, shaking his head.

"Cut the crap. If you were sorry, you would have told me about it a long time ago."

"It's not at all like you think. I merely suggested to David that it wasn't fair for him to ask you to leave your job, and he took it completely to heart."

"Paul, you are a very…persuasive individual, and you know that. I don't care so much about the what – you've already done it. I want to know why."

He glanced away. "Part of it was selfish. You know that. I didn't want you leaving. The other part of it, though – he just wasn't right for you. Nobody else will say that, but we all saw it. I didn't want you to throw away your life for a man that was anything less than perfect for you."

I looked at him curiously. "You told me early on that he _was_ perfect. You encouraged me."

He nodded. "I know. I know. Then I saw how you were with him – you changed, Liz, and not for the better. You started to lose who you were. You weren't that independent tough girl I knew anymore; you changed into this simpering, doting wifely type. And don't tell me that's what you've always wanted – I know you better than that."

I tried not to hear the truth in his words, but I found it undeniable. I'd never wanted to be someone's housewife, and that's what David had wanted to turn me into. The perspective granted by time and distance could be a blessing.

"David wouldn't have been able to handle who you actually were," he continued. "Once I got to know him, it was easy to see. He only had one ultimate goal – have a pretty wife who could stay at home and give him pretty, well-behaved babies. We both know that's not what you want, and it's not where you belong."

I sighed, rubbing my hand against my forehead. "You should have let me figure it out on my own."

"I tried. I gave you a year. I never once heard you express doubt, even though I knew you must have had some reservations about your relationship. I had to step in. Was it technically wrong to do? Yes. Did I overstep my bounds? Absolutely. Do I regret it? No. Despite what you might want to believe, I was only looking out for you."

I glanced over at him. "Did anyone else have anything to do with it?"

I could see his lip curl up just a little bit. "Dean never suggested it or even knew that I did it," he replied, reading me entirely too easily for my liking. "He wasn't happy about you and David, obviously. He had a lot of drunken rants about the whole subject, but he left you alone in every way possible." He paused. "I think part of it was that he wanted you to see that David was wrong on your own, but I think another big part of it was that it hurt him to see you even remotely happy with another man. He has a very odd way about him, but in his own way he does care about you – maybe a little too much."

I nodded, feeling a heavy weight settle back onto my shoulders. It would have been a lot easier if Ambrose had been involved in some way. It would have been the last step in our little struggle, and it would have been the end.

At least, I thought it would have been. It was always hard to tell with him.

"I didn't come here for any other reason than to apologize, and to let you know that I'm not giving up on you." I glanced up at him, surprised to hear those words coming out of his mouth. "I want you back with us. I put in the paperwork for an extended leave of absence, so you have six weeks to decide." He stood up, grabbing his cup of coffee. "I hope you make the right decision."

With that, he walked out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

I spent a long time thinking about what Paul had said to me.

I had loved David for what I knew of him. I knew that he was charming and sweet-natured and an endearingly terrible dancer, but what did I know about his bad qualities? What did I know about his temper or how he behaved when he got angry? I didn't know anything. We just didn't know each other well enough.

With that in mind, even I knew that he wanted a family yesterday. I had tried so hard to want that too, but I could admit now that I still wasn't sure. I'd _wanted_ to want it – but for him, not for my own sake.

And finally I could admit that I'd had my doubts. I'd tried to throw caution to the wind because I wanted a normal life so badly. I wanted that loving partner who would support me throughout every terrible decision I made, because there were going to be a lot of those. I wanted to come home to someone at night and share my life with them.

I sighed. I'd never have that. This wasn't a pity party thought, either. It was realizing that my life wasn't normal, and not at all conducive to a 'normal' relationship. The simple truth was that I liked my life the way it was. I liked being on the road; I liked spending time with my friends; I liked helping run a wrestling show. I didn't just like it, I loved it. I'd never fit anywhere so perfectly in my life.

And whoever I ended up with was going to need to understand and respect that. David wasn't the right one.

It slapped me upside the head pretty hard, that realization.

I was still angry at Paul for what he'd done – he had completely crossed the line – but I could at least see why he had done it, and I could believe that his intentions had been good enough.

I felt a little better about the whole thing, and I knew immediately that I would be going back. I was going to let him sweat for a bit before he knew that, though.

My phone interrupted my thoughts, and I could see that my other unresolved issue was calling. What the hell, I was feeling brave.

Dean was pretty obviously intoxicated. "I'm so sick of your shit," he said by way of greeting, the words sloshing through his mouth.

"Tell me something I haven't heard before," I replied dryly.

"It was over a year and I was good," he rushed on as if he hadn't heard me. "I didn't fuck with you. When you became available, sure – shit happened, but you wanted it just as bad as I did. And now I'm the bad guy. What the fuck, Lizzy? What the actual fuck?"

I couldn't help it; I started laughing.

"This isn't a joke. Christ."

"Dean, you're drunk," I said, stating the obvious.

"No shit. Really? Of course I'm drunk; I need to be fucking drunk to fucking deal with you. You drive me to this, Elizabeth."

I shook my head, unable to keep from smiling. I was going to absolutely blow his mind. "You're right," I said evenly, "and I'm sorry."

"Of course I'm ri – wait, what?"

"Go sleep it off, Dean. We'll talk when you're sober."

"I want to talk now." I could hear his voice creeping towards anger.

"If you want to chat, fine – but we're not covering any topics of importance while you're intoxicated. I want us both to be with it for those kinds of conversations."

He didn't answer for a long time before finally spitting out – "Did I call the right fucking number? Who is this?"

I rolled my eyes. "Like I said, Ambrose. Go sleep it off. We'll talk later."


	6. Chapter 6

My phone jarred me out of sleep at 4:30 the following morning. I rolled over and glanced at it with a heart full of malice. Dean Ambrose. If he was still drunk, I was going to get up and hunt him down.

"What?" I snapped as I picked up.

"What did we talk about last night?" Ambrose demanded, his voice rougher than usual.

"Do you have any idea what time it is? I wasn't sleeping or anything."

"I don't give a flying fuck _what_ you were doing. I am hung-over and pissed off, Elizabeth. Don't push my buttons this morning. What were we talking about?"

"You were telling me how difficult it was to deal with me, and I apologized."

He was quiet for a few minutes. "Seriously?"

I laughed. "That was about the shape of your reaction last night, too, which is why I said we'd talk when you were sober. I didn't necessarily mean the _minute_ you were sober, but I appreciate your enthusiasm."

"All right," he said, his voice sounding a bit sharper, a bit more interested. "So let's talk, then."

I wasn't sure where to start. "I talked to Paul yesterday," I finally said. "We had a very enlightening chat – nothing to do with you specifically, but he mentioned in the course of our discussion that you had nothing to do with David and I splitting up."

"I told you that already."

"It just helped to hear it somewhere else, all right? Can you blame me for wanting a bit of confirmation?"

"Suppose not," he said grudgingly.

"Gee, thanks." He could be infuriating. "So, long story short, after Paul left I did some thinking and realized that I haven't really been fair to you lately, and I know how frustrating that must be. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Lizzy. Just do something about it."

I sighed. "I'm trying here, Dean. I'm trying really hard to be nice to you. Can't we just start there? Can't we just try being nice to one another for a change and see what happens?"

"I'm not nice."

"I know you're not," I replied, suddenly even more tired than I had been when I picked up the phone. "It's a stupid idea, and I don't know why I'd even bother proposing it. I guess we can just stay at a standstill until one of us kills the other."

He was quiet for a few minutes. "I can try to be nice," he finally said, the words obviously causing him some pain as they came out of his mouth. "I can't guarantee that I'll do it with any measure of success, but I'll try to be nice. But, Lizzy – you should know that I won't stay that way. I am who I am, and if you want to walk down this road with me you'll need to deal with that."

"I know," I replied. Still, my heart sank just a little bit. "I just need to figure out if I want to walk down the road first."

"Are you serious? After two years, you still don't know?"

I took a deep breath. This was going to suck. "I think that I do know," I admitted. "There's just something about you that I can't stay away from. I just want…I want to try to do this right. For the first time since we've known each other, I want to try to do this the right way without either of us having any ulterior motives. Can't you just give me that?"

"You act like I haven't given you enough already." I could hear the bitter undertones to his voice.

"I know you have. I'm asking, admittedly selfishly, for a little bit more before I give you what you want."

"What if I say no?"

I shrugged. "Then we'll just keep going the way we are. Maybe someday we'll get it together, but more than likely we won't."

He didn't answer for a few minutes. The silence was thick, and I could feel my heart start drumming in my chest.

"Fine," he snapped. "But this is it, Liz. If you fuck this up, I'm going to fuck your whole life up. I'm tired of this shit."

The phone went silent to my ear. He'd hung up on me.

It wasn't exactly the most promising start, but at least it was fitting.


	7. Sequel

Thank you all, once more, for reading/reviewing/favoriting/following/PMing/Tweeting, and all of the various ways you guys show me that you're enjoying what I'm writing.

The next part is up and is entitled "Don't Want to Let You Down, but I am Hell-Bound." I hope you enjoy it!

As an aside, I need to travel for work next week, so it may be awhile before I get to the next part - but there will be a next part.


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